Red River rivals heading for their strangest clash ever
AUSTIN — Like the entirety of 2020, the Texas Longhorns’ bus ride through Fair Park this Saturday will feel like it’s unfolding within an alternate dimension.
With the State Fair of Texas canceled because of COVID-19, that trip through what’s a usually teeming fairground will be downright lonely. There’s a “Big Tex Fair Food Drive-Thru” with Fletcher’s corny dogs and other staples, and the Cotton Bowl still stands as the ancient host, but the charged atmosphere of years past can’t be replicated by a shuttered carnival and 25 percent seating capacity.
“The thing I will miss the most is the bus ride through the crowd, through the state fair into the stadium,” Texas coach Tom Herman said Monday. “You know what makes this rivalry so special? It’s not just two interstate rivals. It’s two interstate rivals that happen to play every year at one of the most historic venues in our nation, and during the Texas State Fair.”
Despite all the pandemic-related cancellations, postponements and schedule reshaping, No. 22 Texas (2-1, 1-1Big 12) and Oklahoma (1-2, 0-2) will still beat up on each other in Dallas for the 84th consecutive year. But both teams have rarely, if ever, entered the Big 12’s marquee rivalry game so rattled and battered.
The Sooners sit at the bottom of the league standings after losses to Kansas State and Iowa State. The Longhorns couldn’t carry over their momentum from an overtime win at Texas Tech, falling last Saturday to TCU at Royal-Memorial Stadium.
So instead of fighting for conference supremacy, two of the college football’s seven winningest programs will scrap just to remain in the Big 12 title picture.
“Boy, if we’re trying to predict the season after three games, I mean ...” Herman said, trailing off. “I don’t know what benefit that serves to try to predict anything in this crazy year. I haven’t given it any thought. We’ll try to take care of our business one week at a time, go 1-0 this week against our rival, and let the national landscape unfold over the next two months.”
Herman doesn’t have to be Nostradamus to know a second Big 12 loss would leave Texas with an even steeper climb to the Big 12 title game at AT&T Stadium. And Oklahoma can’t afford to lose again this season, though its shot at a fourth straight appearance in the College Football Playoff expired last weekend in Ames, Iowa, with a 37-30 loss to the Cyclones.
Those implications are abnormal, too. Not so much for Texas, which is still without a conference championship since 2009, but the unexpected tribulations of Oklahoma illustrate how disorderly the Big 12 feels after two games.
But chaos is always accompanied by opportunity, and piling onto the Sooners’ woes would cool Herman’s seat some and set the Longhorns back on the right path. And leading into his final clash with Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl, senior quarterback Sam Ehlinger seems hellbent on sinking the Sooners like he did in 2018.
“I know he’s displayed remarkable leadership here in the last 48 hours,” Herman said Monday of Ehlinger. “Remarkable. And I can’t thank him enough for that.
“You know, I know it’s a very overused phrase, but he really is like a coach on the field. I mean, not just on the field, but in the locker room. He’s a coach on the sidelines. He’s a coach on Saturday night in the offseason.”
The State Fair usually attracts about 200,000 people on the day Texas and Oklahoma play. More than 92,000 fans cram into the divided stadium, with Longhorns packed into one half and Sooners crowded into the other.
“The past two years going into the game was so amazing,” redshirt sophomore nose tackle Keondre Coburn said. “I’m talking about eyeswide open. Seeing one side of just your team, the other side this team. So being at the Cotton Bowl is going to be weird not having all the fans there to support you.
“But being here, you know what you have to do, that’s for sure. You always have to beat Oklahoma.”